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Here's how much it will cost for all the Nintendo Switch kit

The Nintendo Switch has been revealed - and along with it, its much-debated price.

The hardware will launch on March 3 worldwide, with the console itself priced at an RRP of £279.99 - slightly more than the £250 that had been widely rumoured before the big unveiling. That's £30 more than the original 8GB Wii U launched at, but £20 less than the £300 asked for the 32GB model at the time.

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For further reference, the Switch's RRP also comes in at more than a standard 500GB PS4 or Xbox One (both RRP £249.99, often with a game bundled in) but less than a PS4 Pro (RRP £349.99). The Switch is also likely to be less expensive than Microsoft's Xbox One Scorpio model, but that console's pricing has not been confirmed yet.

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Plus, Nintendo's £279.99 figure doesn't really detail the full cost of getting everything out of the console. If you want to experience everything the hardware has to offer, you'll need to dig deep to pick up some ostensibly optional, but realistically required peripherals - and they're not cheap.

Here, WIRED looks at what picking up a 'full' kit for Nintendo Switch will set you back, adding up the total as we go along. We're using prices taken from Nintendo's own UK online store as a baseline; prices at other retailers may differ. We're also not accounting for any bundle deals, which again would depend on what individual sellers offered.

Starting cost: £279.99

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Nintendo

That sum gets you the console, but gaming is most fun when it's shared with friends. Although one of the Switch's selling points is the Joy-Con controller - two multi-functional controller halves that slide onto the core Switch console, combine into one 'traditional' joypad, or used as individual mini-controllers - that only accounts for up to two players. When one of the best-looking day one games is Super Bomberman R, which supports four players, you'll need another set of Joy-Cons, and two per player for later releases such as ARMS.

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Whether in console-matching cobalt grey or deliberately clashing red-blue pairs, an additional pack of Joy-Con twins will set you back £69.99. The Switch also supports up to eight players simultaneously, each using one half of a Joy-Con, which could warrant purchasing three more pairs. You can also buy a single left or right Joy-Con for £39.99 each, presumably for replacement purposes, but we'll ignore those for now. For our purposes, we'll assume a purchase of just one combined set to enable four-player Switch play.

Subtotal: £349.98

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To expand on the multiplayer side, one of the Switch's most promising looking games is Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, while Fast RMX looks a spiritual successor to F-Zero. The Joy-Cons are a bit too small individually to use thumbsticks and face buttons, but thankfully they're also brilliant motion-detecting wands, and tilting left or right allows you to steer.

To make this feel more natural, you can get steering wheel accessories, similar to those released for the Wii, to hold the Joy-Con horizontally. These allow players to 'drive' properly, and at £12.99 for a pack of two, they're one of the best-priced accesssories for Switch.

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Subtotal: £362.97

Nintendo

Ah, but you want to charge the batteries on those Joy-Cons? Well, that could be tricky. They'll recharge when connected to the Switch console itself and docked, but not when used on the 'grip' - a frame packed in with the console that lets you use two Joy-Con as one more traditional controller.

Luckily, Nintendo can sell you an additional grip that does charge controllers, for an extra £24.99. At this point, we've accounted for an additional pair of Joy-Cons anyway, and there needs to be a way to charge them, so this gets added to the hypothetical cart.

Subtotal: £387.96

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This is mounting up, and the Switch is meant to be a console you can take anywhere and play on the go. It'd be a shame to damage such a lovely piece of kit, so probably better get the Accessory Set - a durable carrying case and screen protector, yours for £16.99.

Subtotal: £404.95

Of course, you might want some games to actually play on the Switch, especially since it doesn't officially come with any included. The launch line up is small though, with only five games on day one - The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, 1-2-Switch, Super Bomberman R, Just Dance, and Skylanders: Imaginators.

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Let's presume Zelda is a given, which has an RRP of £59.99. If we account for most players wanting three games to play at launch, and that 1-2-Switch is widely picked up due to its lower RRP of £39.99, that leaves one of the other three titles, for your choosing - at £49.99 RRP each.

Total: £554.92

All in all, that's a pretty expensive outlay for anyone planning to get really stuck in to the Switch on day one.

And the rest...

But that's not all. While the above is an indicator of what you'd need to be able to do four-player gaming, charge controllers, and protect your console, there are other potential costs. We'll not add these to the total, but they bear keeping in mind.

Primarily, there is the matter of hard drive space. While games will be sold on small cartridges, for digitally downloaded games the Nintendo Switch has only 32GB of internal storage. However, it is expandable via non-proprietary microSDXC cards. The Switch supports up to 2TB, but cards of those capacities aren't consumer grade yet. Nintendo itself also won't - at time of writing - be producing its own memory cards.

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This is where we need to get a little murky in our calculations, as prices can fluctuate wildly. Looking at a 256GB card, which would upgrade the Switch to have half the capacity of a baseline cheaper PS4 or Xbox One, current prices range from £135-£150. Let's say £140, although obviously a smaller card would cost less.

To return to the charging issue raised above, an additional power adaptor will set you back £24.99. This would be a 'luxury' purchase though, as you could simply take the plug you'd use at home with you when travelling. Alternatively, the Switch uses USB-C to charge, so an extra cable may suffice (though this is to be confirmed).

Nintendo

If the modular nature of the Joy-Cons isn't to your liking, or you fancy something more durable for fighting games (there will, almost inevitably, be a new Smash Bros. at some point, if nothing else) then there's the Nintendo Switch Pro Controller - a standalone, traditional pad. It's an extra £59.99 though, and far from essential around launch.

Finally, there are the Joy-Con controller straps. These aren't just wrist-wraps for the Joy-Con halves - they also raise the tiny shoulder buttons when used as micro-controllers, making them far more comfortable. Actual Joy-Con controllers - whether the twin packs or the solo halves - seem to come with them though, so the separate straps look to be purely for replacement purposes, or if you want red/blue ones to match the colourful Joy-Con variants. Either way, they're £4.99 each.

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There will also be a paid subscription service, similar to PlayStation Plus or Xbox Live Gold, which is set to launch around Autumn. While firm details on this are still unknown, we have an idea how much it's likely to cost. Nintendo president Tatsumi Kimishima told Japanese business paper Nikkei that the Switch's online services will be priced at ¥2,000-¥3,000 (£14-£21 at time of writing).

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For that, players can expect "enhanced" features, including online multiplayer support and monthly access to downloadable games from NES and SNES libraries. Whether those games will be yours to keep or just available for the month they're available is unclear though.

Then there are additional costs for games themselves. Nintendo has announced plans for a DLC season pass for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. This will cost £17.99 and add two major packs of digital content to the launch title over the course of 2017, with the second introducing a "new original story". Of course, as with all DLC, this purchase will be optional - but likely very desirable for Zelda fans. It could, however, indicate Nintendo being open to more DLC for future titles.

Obviously, our calculations rely on base prices of all individual parts, and don't allow for aforementioned bundles offered by retailers. We've also made assumptions about how the Nintendo Switch will be used that won't apply to all players. Yet on those base costs alone, it's clear Nintendo's newest console is also one of its most expensive, however you count.